Lord of the Rings Online Forum

Ever since update 33 came out, the game seems to be crashing before it even loads in my characters. I know it's not because the servers are still down, because almost everyone in my kin is in the game as I'm typing this.

To give a visual, the client will load and I'll to the point right before my character list meant to appear. However, the screen stays frozen on the loading screen and just starts playing the music. Given enough time, the whole screen starts glitching out.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game twice now and this will be my third time. I've done the whole "turn it off and back on" routine with my computer. Nothing appears to be working so far.

Maria Hoover wrote:

Ever since update 33 came out, the game seems to be crashing before it even loads in my characters. I know it's not because the servers are still down, because almost everyone in my kin is in the game as I'm typing this.

To give a visual, the client will load and I'll to the point right before my character list meant to appear. However, the screen stays frozen on the loading screen and just starts playing the music. Given enough time, the whole screen starts glitching out.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game twice now and this will be my third time. I've done the whole "turn it off and back on" routine with my computer. Nothing appears to be working so far.

That does sound very frustrating. We'll figure this out together. I can tell you that it's not some incompatibility between Crossover 21.2 and LOTRO because I just spent an hour in the game and saw your report here as soon as I logged out.

It's always helpful to know exactly what we're dealing with: What version of Crossover are you using? What model of Mac do you have? How much RAM? Which video card and how much VRAM? What screen resolution do you use on your monitor? Do you use more than one monitor?

Try this, then report back with your results and the answers to those questions:
1- Locate the file ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences.ini.
2- Open that file with TextEdit.
3- Look for the line...
GameClientType=X
...where the value of X is an integer 1, 2, or 3.
4- If the value of X is anything but 1, change it to 1.
5- Save the file.
6- Quit out of TextEdit.
7- Launch the game and attempt to log in. If the LOTRO launcher application prompts you to change to the 64-bit client, say NO and proceed with the 32-bit client.

The 64-bit client is better in every way than the 32-bit client but it is easier to troubleshoot with the 32-bit client because we only have to deal with one .ini file. The UserPreferences.ini file is used by both the LOTRO launcher application and the client application. The 64-bit client uses UserPreferences64.ini.

Hey, man! Thanks a bunch! Apparently the text file had a 3 instead of a 1? Went in a switched it and it was back to normal.

Maria Hoover wrote:

Hey, man! Thanks a bunch! Apparently the text file had a 3 instead of a 1? Went in a switched it and it was back to normal.

That's good, Maria. That tells us that the problem was with your UserPreferences64.ini file. And that is going to be an easy fix. But we need to make that fix because the 64-bit client is far superior to the 32-bit client. In graphically challenging or player-dense areas, you will get slowdowns and more crashing with the 32-bit client. Importantly, the 32-bit client is being retired at the end of this calendar year. While you can keep using it until 01 Jan 2023, there is really no point in doing so.

The actual fix is very simple:
1- Locate the file ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences.ini.
2- Open that file with TextEdit.
3- Look for the line...
GameClientType=X
...where the value of X is an integer 1, 2, or 3.
4- Change the value of X to 3.
5- Look for the line...
ScreenMode=Y
...where Y is a text string FullScreen, FullScreenWindowed, or Windowed.
6- Change the value of Y to FullScreenWindowed.
7- Save the file.
8- SELECT ALL then COPY the entire contents of the UserPreferences.ini file.
9- Close the file.
10- Locate the file ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences64.ini.
11- Open that file with TextEdit.
12- SELECT ALL then PASTE the entire contents of the Clipboard, replacing the entire existing contents of the UserPreferences.ini file.
13- Save the file.
14- Quit out of TextEdit.

Finally, go into your Crossover bottle settings and be sure they are set just like this:

It doesn't matter in what order those lines appear in your bottle settings but everything checked needs to be checked and everything un-checked needs to be un-checked.

The next time you run LOTRO, get to the LOTRO launcher application, enter your credentials and click on PLAY; the 64-bit client will launch. It will launch with the exact same parameters as you have successfully used with the 32-bit client so there should be none of the problems you experienced earlier.

Note that once you are in-game with the 64-bit client, you can go into the in-game OPTIONS panel and experiment with increasing your graphics, especially trying DirectX 11. I suspect that DirectX 11 might have been the cause of your issues because in LOTRO, DirectX 11 is not compatible with every combination of Mac hardware which is one of the reasons I asked you to report back with your system information. You will definitely be able to boost your other graphics quality settings, or you can simply leave things alone and enjoy higher framerates and a cooler-running Mac.

Please do this then report back with your results. Have fun in Middle-earth!

Hi John! Ive been having the exact same issue with lotro in crossover where it gets to the loading screen before character selection and plays the music but gets stuck there.
I tried editing the integer from 3 to 1 and running it in 32 bit, but that cause it to get no further than the launcher. I enter my login, select a server and the launcher disappears.

Any ideas?? Would be much appreciated! Ive been trying to get this working for a few days now.

Trying to run it on a mid 2012 Macbook pro running Catalina. 16 gigs of ram, 2.5ghz dual core intel i5. Its also upgraded to a SSD.
In the past on the mac supported client from Turbine it ran the game fine. I've been worried that the added CPU usage of Crossover may be too much for the machine?

Any help would be SO appreciated!

Jaman wrote:

Hi John! Ive been having the exact same issue with lotro in crossover where it gets to the loading screen before character selection and plays the music but gets stuck there.
I tried editing the integer from 3 to 1 and running it in 32 bit, but that cause it to get no further than the launcher. I enter my login, select a server and the launcher disappears.

Any ideas?? Would be much appreciated! Ive been trying to get this working for a few days now.

Trying to run it on a mid 2012 Macbook pro running Catalina. 16 gigs of ram, 2.5ghz dual core intel i5. Its also upgraded to a SSD.
In the past on the mac supported client from Turbine it ran the game fine. I've been worried that the added CPU usage of Crossover may be too much for the machine?

Any help would be SO appreciated!

Hi, Jaman! Your Mac should be able to run LOTRO nicely enough with Crossover. Because it has both Intel integrated graphics and a discrete graphics card, there is a small additional complication to deal with (see F below) but it shouldn't pose a major problem.

A- Let's be sure your local network isn't getting in the way:
1- Shut down your computer and all your network devices. "All your network devices" for most people means your wireless router and your cable modem. You might have more than one device composing your router, be sure you shut them all down. You might have something other than a cable modem (DSL or some other way of getting the wide world of interwebs into your house) – whatever it is, shut it down. If you don't know how to turn something off, unplug it.
2- Wait 2 minutes. 120 seconds. Just wait with all your stuff turned off.
3- Turn everything back on/plug everything back in starting with the most "upstream" device and working your way downstream. For most people, that means turning on the cable modem first. After turning on a device, allow it to fully boot before turning on the next device. If you can't tell when a device is fully booted, just turn it on/plug it in and then wait 2 full minutes (120 seconds) before moving to the next device downstream. So for most people: Cable modem, wireless router, then finally computer.

B- Let's be sure your bottle settings are correct:

C- If you haven't already done so, install "DirectX for Modern Games" into your bottle. Be sure you install it into your LOTRO bottle, not a new bottle or some other existing bottle.

D- Let's check a few things in your .ini file:
1- Open ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences.ini with TextEdit.
2- Look for the following lines. If they don't exist, create them. If they do exist, edit them to match exactly if necessary. Spelling and capitalization count! The position/order of the lines within the file does not matter.
GameClientType=3
GraphicsCore=D3D9
ScreenMode=FullScreenWindowed
3- After performing any needed edits, SAVE the file then QUIT out of TextEdit.

E- If you use an external display, disconnect it for now. You can reconnect it later.

F- Let's set your Mac to always use its discrete graphics card:
1- Go to the Apple menu  > System Preferences.
2- Choose the Energy Saver tab.
3- Deselect the automatic graphics switching checkbox.
You can get more complete instructions here, although they are for later versions of MacOS than you are running so the screenshot might not exactly match what you will see in System Preferences->Energy Saver:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043

G- Let's do a restart!
1- If Crossover is running, quit out of it.
2- Restart your Mac.
3- When your Mac is fully booted and you have logged into your Mac user account, launch Crossover.
4- In the left column of the Crossover window, click once on your LOTRO bottle.
5- In the right column of the Crossover window, double-click on CONTROL PANELS->SIMULATE REBOOT.

H- After doing all of the above, and only after doing all of the above, try to launch LOTRO.

I- Report back with your results. I hope this gets you into the game! If not, there are other things we can try.

WOW That worked!!

Although the character screen is rendering very slowly.. PROGRESS! Very thankful for the help!

There were two discrepancies between the situation on my machine and your instructions and I wonder if that could be a reason for the lag.

Firstly, I have a different LOTRO bottle called "Lord Of The Rings Online", not "LOTRO". Not sure if this could cause an issue.
It is 5 star rated on crossover and I know it to work well for me on another newer Macbook pro. BUT a difference between it and the "LOTRO" bottle which you sent a screen shot of, is that its bottle type is Windows 7 64-bit rather than Windows 10 64-bit.

image

Second, my machine did not have an option to automatically switch between graphics cards, and upon reading that Apple write up, it just means that I only have one. So I wouldn't think that is a problem to be solved either.

Im hoping that with some tweaking we can just get it to run smoother?

Thank you again for the help!!!

Jaman wrote:

WOW That worked!!

Although the character screen is rendering very slowly.. PROGRESS! Very thankful for the help!

There were two discrepancies between the situation on my machine and your instructions and I wonder if that could be a reason for the lag.

Firstly, I have a different LOTRO bottle called "Lord Of The Rings Online", not "LOTRO". Not sure if this could cause an issue.
It is 5 star rated on crossover and I know it to work well for me on another newer Macbook pro. BUT a difference between it and the "LOTRO" bottle which you sent a screen shot of, is that its bottle type is Windows 7 64-bit rather than Windows 10 64-bit.

image

Second, my machine did not have an option to automatically switch between graphics cards, and upon reading that Apple write up, it just means that I only have one. So I wouldn't think that is a problem to be solved either.

Im hoping that with some tweaking we can just get it to run smoother?

Thank you again for the help!!!

Very glad the client application is running for you!

There were 3 different mid-2012 MacBook Pros. The 13" model had Intel integrated graphics only. The two 15" models had both Intel integrated graphics and a discrete graphics card. I assumed you had one of the 15" models. The Intel HD4000 integrated graphics in the 13" are the same as the integrated graphics on one of my Macs, a late-2012 Mac Mini. I've got 16gb of RAM in that machine as well but it has a quad-core i7 processor and yours has a dual-core i5 or i7. With LOTRO, single-core performance matters the most but having more cores helps a lot with the API call translation being performed by WINE within Crossover and any other processes that might be running alongside the game (even stuff not in the foreground such as Discord or Safari or Mail).

If you do have a 15" mid-2012 MacBook Pro, you will want to use the discrete graphics card rather than the integrated graphics. So if your Mac is not the 13" model, let's get that sorted, because you will have a much better experience with LOTRO if you run it on the better graphics subsystem.

You can probably get better performance, that is, better frame rates:
–Lower your resolution. You can do this in System Preferences->Displays with the game in Full Screen Windowed mode (the best to use if you can) or using the in-game OPTIONS->GRAPHICS panel. You need to switch to Full Screen mode in order to make in-game changes to resolution. Play at as low a resolution as you can tolerate, the fewer pixels that have to be driven by the game engine the higher your frame rate will be.
–Try lowering various in-game graphics settings. Don't use the OVERALL GRAPHICS QUALITY setting, that is not really a setting but a group of presets. Make one change at a time, see if you can tolerate it and if it improves performance, then move on to another setting. Try to use ANISOTROPIC FILTERING at LEVEL 4 rather than a "lower" setting because even though Anisotropic is best it is also often most efficient (but anything higher than Level 4 is really demanding and has diminishing returns). This might take some experimentation to determine, some hardware does run better with TRILINEAR or some other texture filtering scheme.
–Disabling Post-Processing Effects can improve frame rates quite a lot. Unfortunately, that also has the largest impact on visual quality, especially of water and particle effects. Water in LOTRO is amazing and beautiful with Post-Processing Effects enabled, it is kind of not-watery-looking and whitish-flat with it disabled.
–Try DirectX 11. You can switch using the in-game OPTIONS->GRAPHICS panel. You will need to quit out of LOTRO and then restart it for the change to take effect. It is possible the the game will refuse to run with DirectX 11 on your Mac, if that happens just go into the UserPreferences.ini file and change the line back to:
GraphicsCore=D3D9
If the game does run with DirectX 11, use it. If the game runs with DirectX 11 but you run into some trouble with it, go back to DirectX 9. You can do so using the OPTIONS->GRAPHICS panel but if you can't get to it due to some problem just edit the UserPreferences.ini file to force the revert.

The name of your LOTRO bottle is just a name. You can change it any time you like, just click-and-hover on the bottle name to edit it. So that's not an issue.

As long as your bottle is 64-bit you can change the exact version of the Windows environment that Crossover's WINE fools the game into thinking it is running in. To do so, select your LOTRO bottle in the left-hand column of the Crossover window. In the right-hand column, double-click on CONTROL PANELS->WINE CONFIGURATION. Select the APPLICATIONS tab. Near the bottom-right, use the drop-down menu to choose WINDOWS 10 instead of Windows 7. Then click on APPLY. Then click OK.

I know that "everyone" says to use the oldest version of Windows that will work with whatever application you're trying to run. That is good general practice with Crossover, but not in the case of LOTRO. Be sure your bottle is set to Windows 10 64-bit. Although one can change the Windows version easily using the WINE control panel, one can not change between 32/64-bit and need to create a new bottle if it is not a 64-bit bottle already. Yours is 64-bit so no worries there.

I'm sorry there's no simple magic bullet-type of solution for improving your frame rates. Lower resolution is going to be the most impactful but other than that, it's really going to require an investment of time to find the right balance of visual quality and frame rate that your old hardware can produce that is most appealing to you as an individual user with specific preferences.

Welcome back to LOTRO! Have fun!

So awesome! With some tweaks Ive got it running well!

Thanks again!!

Unfortunately I am back again to try and get some help!

SO, I have been successfully playing LOTRO on my brand new 14" Macbook Pro. It has run it with no problems for months now.
Today upon logging in through the game launcher I ran into a Wine Debugger pop up with a program error saying:
"The program lotrobrowserhelper64.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
https://imgur.com/8xAVmyW

The game would load all the way to character selection but as soon as I tried to click anything the game would become unresponsive. This happened multiple times. Sometimes the Debugger would not pop up, but the same issue would happen, leaving me to force quit out of the game and try again.

I tried quitting all applications and restarting my laptop and the problem persisted.

SO I thought I would try deleting and reinstalling the bottle.
Now that bottle installation seems to gets stuck at the same spot continually:
"Installing microsoft C++ 2010 (10.0) Redistributable"
The crossover progress bar just gets stuck there.
https://imgur.com/xV45DDI

What I feel is likely to have caused an issue is that I did an update last night to my OS. Now running Ventura 13.3.

Feeling kind of stuck. And you were super helpful last time so I thought I might reach out!

I am running MacOS 13.3 Ventura with Crossover 22.1 and have experienced no issues with LOTRO on my main workstation. I've installed LOTRO onto two old Intel Macs recently and experienced no issues doing that, either.

1- If you have a backup, restore the bottle you deleted. That should be easy if you use Time Machine, but regardless of your backup process please restore your bottle.

2- Create a new bottle. Be sure it is Windows 10 64-bit.

3- Install "DirectX for Modern Games" into your new bottle.

4- Be sure that DXVK is enabled in your new bottle. CSMT, ESYNC, and HIGH RESOLUTION MODE should all be disabled.

5- Now use the "Run Command..." from your new bottle to launch LotroLauncher.exe in your old bottle. If that works, you can quit out of the game and then use the "Run Command..." again to create a launcher icon for LotroLauncher.exe in your new bottle so you can just double-click that to run the game in the future. The game will run in your new bottle even though the game's files will be somewhere else (in your old bottle).

If you don't have a backup of your old bottle, let this be a lesson to you: Always maintain backups.

If there is no backup, do steps 2-4 above. Then perform a thorough local network reset:
1- Shut down your computer and all your network devices. "All your network devices" for most people means your wireless router and your cable modem. You might have more than one device composing your router, be sure you shut them all down. You might have something other than a cable modem (DSL or some other way of getting the wide world of interwebs into your house) – whatever it is, shut it down. If you don't know how to turn something off, unplug it.
2- Wait 2 minutes. 120 seconds. Just wait with all your stuff turned off.
3- Turn everything back on/plug everything back in starting with the most "upstream" device and working your way downstream. For most people, that means turning on the cable modem first. After turning on a device, allow it to fully boot before turning on the next device. If you can't tell when a device is fully booted, just turn it on/plug it in and then wait 2 full minutes (120 seconds) before moving to the next device downstream. So for most people: Cable modem, wireless router, then finally computer.

Don't just send a remote restart command to your router. Don't just clear the caches on your computer. Turn it ALL off, wait 2 full minutes, then turn it all back on starting with the most upstream device and then working your way downstream.

After performing the full local network reset, download the Windows installer from lotro.com:
https://www.lotro.com/guides/lotro-download-en?locale=en
https://files.lotro.com/lotro/installers/lotrolive.exe

Then run lotrolive.exe to install the game into your new bottle.

I can provide more detailed instructions if you need them.

So, Ive gotten it reinstalled into a new bottle. (It wasn't backed up)

But its still getting stuck at the character screen.

I’m sorry that didn’t resolve your problem, Jaman. I suggest that you submit a ticket to Codeweavers about this issue, including the information that the issue seems to be isolated to Apple SOC Macs only since there are, so far, no reports of this problem from users of Intel Macs.

You might also want to follow this thread in the LOTRO forums:
https://forums.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?699113-Unable-to-launch-client-using-Crossover-after-updating-to-Mac-OS-Ventura-13-3-on-an-M1-Mac-mini

If we turn up a solution there, I’ll try to remember to post it here as well. I suspect this might require a fix from Codeweavers, though. In the meanwhile, one solution would be to downgrade to MacOS 13.2.1; of course, without a backup to restore there is no way to downgrade so you would have to create a new APFS volume and then install Ventura fresh and then update it to 13.2.1 using the combo updater here:
edit: No, that link wasn’t correct. I can’t find the 13.2.1 combo updater but it should be available, I’ll continue looking and edit here again if I find it.
edit 2: Here is the link:
https://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/26/15/032-48342-A_OG2YEE7OSX/8sd3qpy79cimb7cjiy47cytps0gm7m0z5l/InstallAssistant.pkg

Jaman, please try this:
1- Quit out of Crossover.
2- Go to /System/Library/CoreServices and double-click Rosetta 2 Updater to run it.
3- Restart your Mac.
4- Launch Crossover and then attempt to run LOTRO.

If LOTRO still fails to run, and you usually have the game set to use DirectX 11, please try with DirectX 9. You can change to DirectX 9 before attempting to launch the game by editing ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences.ini: Change the line GraphicsCore=D3D11 to GraphicsCore=D3D9.

edit 2023-02-29: Other LOTRO players with Apple SOC Macs who are experiencing this issue attempted the two potential workarounds described in this message and they had no effect.

Hi,

since the latest Lotro Update LOTRO is not Working.
(30.03.2023)

The Launcher starts i can loggin and then the launcher close but the game did not start.

What can i do ?

Greets

SOLVED WITH THREAD ABOVE

John M. Hammer wrote:

Jaman, please try this:
1- Quit out of Crossover.
2- Go to /System/Library/CoreServices and double-click Rosetta 2 Updater to run it.
3- Restart your Mac.
4- Launch Crossover and then attempt to run LOTRO.

If LOTRO still fails to run, and you usually have the game set to use DirectX 11, please try with DirectX 9. You can change to DirectX 9 before attempting to launch the game by editing ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online/UserPreferences.ini: Change the line GraphicsCore=D3D11 to GraphicsCore=D3D9.

edit 2023-02-29: Other LOTRO players with Apple SOC Macs who are experiencing this issue attempted the two potential workarounds described in this message and they had no effect.

This work for me. Thank you John M Hammer

EDIT: Works for only exakt one launch of the game.

Stefan, it looks like there is some incompatibility between MacOS 13.3 Ventura and Crossover 22.1 with some Windows applications on Apple SOC Macs (i.e. M1, M2, etc. but not those with Intel CPUs). LOTRO is one of the affected applications. At this time, while I'm sure Codeweavers is working on it, the only workaround is to run these affected applications in a version of MacOS earlier than 13.3, such a 13.2.1. I explain how to do this here:
https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/general/?t=27;msg=276841#c1

You might want to follow this thread at the official LOTRO forums:
https://forums.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?699113-Unable-to-launch-client-using-Crossover-after-updating-to-Mac-OS-Ventura-13-3-on-an-M1-Mac-mini

MacOS 13.3 Ventura seems to be causing problems for quite a number of Windows applications which were running just fine in MacOS 13.2.1 Ventura in Crossover Mac 22.1. These problems seems to be affecting Apple SOC Macs only, Macs with Intel CPUs do not seem to have been negatively affected.

I’m sure that the Codeweavers team is working on a solution. In the meanwhile, a usable workaround is to boot into MacOS 13.2.1 Ventura when you wish to use an affected Windows application. Here is a direct link to Apple’s installer for MacOS 13.2.1 Ventura:
https://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/26/15/032-48342-A_OG2YEE7OSX/8sd3qpy79cimb7cjiy47cytps0gm7m0z5l/InstallAssistant.pkg

I do not know if it is possible to install 13.2.1 over a boot volume that already has 13.3 installed, the Apple installer might not proceed. Try it, and report back here in this thread if that works for you.

If not, create a new APFS volume and then install 13.2.1 into that new APFS volume. You will need to reboot in order to use your affected Windows applications and then reboot to get back to your main boot volume afterward, but you will be able to run those applications while waiting for a better resolution from Codeweavers.

Codeweavers believes they have a solution which they are testing right now and hope to have a public update available very soon:
https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/general/?t=27;msg=276841#c2

-->Quote from Meredith Johnson (Codeweavers rep)<--
Hi all,

Yes, we are working on a solution. We have a build with potential fixes that we have been giving out to users with active entitlements to confirm that it's working for them. Once we get a few more tests and feel good about our fix, we'll release an update.

Best,
Meredith

John you are a champion!! Thanks for keeping me in the loop!

Will keep my eye open for the update from codeweavers... maybe in the mean time I'll create an APFS.

Thank you again!

Update from Meredith Johnson:
"Our testing is going well, and I expect to ship this week :)"

Crossover Mac 22.1.1 is now available. I do not have an Apple SOC Mac in order to perform any tests related to the latest issue caused by MacOS 13.3 and Apple SOC Macs with Crossover 22.1. Crossover 22.1.1 continues to work as well as Crossover 22.1 on my Intel Macs.

Update seems to have worked! :)

Hi John,

I don't suppose you are still around to offer an avid LOTR fan some advice on how to make this work

I had been playing LOTRO for the last 2 years or so until an update to my Mac occurred at the same time as a LOTRO update and I'm really not sure what the root cause of the issue is except I can now no longer get past the initial loading screen (the screen before character selection comes up)

I tried looking through your previous replies on the topic to see if I could fix myself but nothing I've done seems to have done the trick

I'm on a 2020 M1 Mac running Sonoma 14.0 and have always been able to run LOTRO on here just fine until this week so I don't think it's a system requirement issue

Appreciate any advice you can provide here, cheers

I'm still here! I'm surprised this thread is still open for replies, though.

If I understand you correctly, the client runs after you enter your credentials and click the PLAY button in the LOTRO Launcher application, and the client proceeds to show you the various splash screens, but never continues to the character creation/selection screen.

According to tests that I've done and reports from players I trust (which I must rely on in part because I have only Intel CPU Macs), LOTRO will work with MacOS 14.0 Sonoma with Crossover 22.1.1, Crossover 23.0.1, and Crossover 23.5:
https://forums.lotro.com/index.php?threads/mac-macos-sonoma-14-expected-26-sep-2023-should-you-upgrade-to-it.3185/

That said, it would be best to upgrade to Crossover 23.5 if you can since it is the only currently available version which "officially" supports MacOS 14 Sonoma. If you are not running at least Crossover 22.1.1, you need to upgrade to that version or higher. It is possible you are running some older version of Crossover which ran LOTRO just fine in MacOS 13 Ventura (or whatever other older version of MacOS you were running before upgrading to MacOS 14 Sonoma), but any version of Crossover older than 22.1.1 will not work.

Please provide your basic information:
–The exact model of your Mac
–The amount of RAM installed
–The exact version of MacOS you are running (already provided, MacOS 14.0 Sonoma)
–The exact version of Crossover you are running
–The bottle type, i.e. Windows version and bit depth; example "Windows 10 64-bit"
–The status of your "bottle settings"
–––D3DMetal enabled/disabled?
–––DXVK enabled/disabled?
–––ESync enabled/disabled?
–––High Resolution Mode enabled/disabled?

Brilliant, I must admit to being surprised too so really appreciate this, to answer questions see below, must admit I don't know much about tech so let me know if any of the answers aren't what you are looking for:

–The exact model of your Mac: MacBook Pro, M1, 2020, Chip Apple M1
–The amount of RAM installed: 8GB
–The exact version of MacOS you are running (already provided, MacOS 14.0 Sonoma)
–The exact version of Crossover you are running: 23.5.0.36528
–The bottle type, i.e. Windows version and bit depth; example "Windows 10 64-bit": Windows 7 64Bit
–The status of your "bottle settings"
–––D3DMetal enabled/disabled? Disabled
–––DXVK enabled/disabled? Enabled
–––ESync enabled/disabled? Disabled
–––High Resolution Mode enabled/disabled? Disabled

I saw this exact same problem recently. This is what worked for that other person:

Quit out of LOTRO if any part of it (launcher or client) is running.

Click once on your LOTRO bottle in the left-hand column of the main Crossover window to select that bottle.

In the right-hand column of the main Crossover window, look for CONTROL PANELS. Double-click on WINE CONFIGURATION to launch winecfg.

Go to the APPLICATIONS tab. Near the bottom, use the WINDOWS VERSION dropdown menu to choose WINDOWS 10. Then click the APPLY button. Then click the OK button.

Quit out of Crossover. Launch Crossover. Then attempt to run LOTRO.

This is why I recommend not using the Crosstie:
https://forums.lotro.com/index.php?threads/mac-installing-lotro-on-a-mac-using-crossover-short-version.74/
The Crossover Crossties, the fully automated way to install things in Crossover, are generally very good. But for some reason the LOTRO Crosstie sets up the game in a Windows 7 64-bit bottle. I do not know the reason why but some people experience the issue you described unless a Windows 10 64-bit bottle is used.

Unfortunately that didn't work

Not sure if this helps but it seems to get stuck on the screen that says

Loading Subscription Data; Loading Character data for ages before it goes through the other splash screens as well

Then on the final splash screen where it says Loading and it has the flashing image of the ring it gets to the load bar being completely full and then hangs

Please perform a full local network reset:
1- Shut down your computer and all your network devices. "All your network devices" for most people means your wireless router and your cable modem. You might have more than one device composing your router, be sure you shut them all down. You might have something other than a cable modem (DSL or some other way of getting the wide world of interwebs into your house) – whatever it is, shut it down. If you don't know how to turn something off, unplug it.
2- Wait 2 minutes. 120 seconds. Just wait with all your stuff turned off.
3- Turn everything back on/plug everything back in starting with the most "upstream" device and working your way downstream. For most people, that means turning on the cable modem first. After turning on a device, allow it to fully boot before turning on the next device. If you can't tell when a device is fully booted, just turn it on/plug it in and then wait 2 full minutes (120 seconds) before moving to the next device downstream. So for most people: Cable modem, wireless router, then finally computer.

Don't just send a remote restart command to your router. Don't just clear the caches on your computer. Turn it ALL off, wait 2 full minutes, then turn it all back on starting with the most upstream device and then working your way downstream.

When all that's done (it should only require a few minutes) and your Mac is fully booted, attempt to run LOTRO.

Very odd, almost like there are two problems

Just did a full network reset and that fixed the character retrieval issue that I just mentioned

However it's still stuck on the final splash screen with the loading bar full

Create a new bottle, Windows 10 64-bit.

Install "DirectX for Modern Games" into the new bottle.

Be sure that the bottle settings are DXVK enabled and everything else disabled.

In the left-hand column of the main Crossover window, click once on the name of your new bottle to select it.

Near the upper-right of the main Crossover window, click on RUN COMMAND.

In the RUN COMMAND dialogue, be sure that your new bottle is selected. Then use the BROWSE button to find the LotroLauncher.exe file in your older LOTRO bottle. If it is in the default location, you will find it here:
~/Library/Application Support/Crossover/Bottles/TheNameOfYourOlderLOTROBottle/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/StandingStoneGames/The Lord of the Rings Online/LotroLauncher.exe

Then click the RUN button at the bottom-right of the RUN COMMAND dialogue.

LOTRO (to be specific, the LOTRO Launcher application) will run from your existing installation in your old bottle but will use the WINE components of the new bottle. After you enter your credentials and click the PLAY button in the launcher, the client will start up. You will be asked to grant permission to access your DOCUMENTS folder and your MICROPHONE – you need to grant these permissions. The client should then continue to start up.

If this succeeds, the problem is with your older Crossover bottle. The solution will be to move your installation of LOTRO to the new bottle you just created. Report back and I'll give you an easy way to do this and an alternative faster way to do this.

If this fails, the problem is with your installation of LOTRO. The solution will be to run the LOTRO Launcher application's "repair" function. Report back and I'll give you detailed instructions for doing this; depending on what the "repair" function needs to do, this can take anywhere from a few minutes to however long it takes to redownload nearly the entire game installation (about 34gb).

First just wanted to say thanks so much for your time, it really is greatly appreciated and once this is solved I'd like to be able to send some money your way to grab a coffee or something

With that said I stumbled across something very odd:

I tried what you said and was stuck with the same issue that I had before, I was playing around with my computer settings and jumped back and forth between my Wifi and my phone's hotspot

When switching back and forth between networks it made Lotro advance through the splash screens to the point where I had selected the character and got to the final loading screen before the full game opens

At which point on my first attempt it kicked me out and said 'connection lost to server' I tried it again and managed to actually get into the game so I tried to travel from one place to another and it worked - I logged out closed game down tried to get in again and had to jump back and forth between different networks to get in again but when I did I was in the place I had travelled to, so can only assume that I did manage to play the game

Very very bizarre and not sure if you can shed any light but if I can access by switching back and forth between networks then perhaps that is a sort of fix

As I said really appreciate your support here

That is very weird... But it does seem to indicate that the problem is with your network and not with either your bottle or your installation of LOTRO. I never in a million years would have suggested switching networks during login, let alone switching back and forth repeatedly, because that should not have been helpful at all and might have even resulted in a disconnect from the account authentication server. So... good for you? I don't know!

1- Please confirm that the weird behavior you described occurs when running LOTRO from your original bottle, as well as the new bottle via Run Command.

2- Please attempt to log in to another server. It doesn't matter which one, it doesn't matter if you have a character there or not. If you don't, and you can get to the character creation/selection screen, create a Beorning and attempt to log it in. Can you get to the character creation/selection screen of the other server without having to jump through those weird wifi-switching hoops? If so, can you get a character to log in as well, also without having to fuss with your networks?

3- Regardless of the results of (2), please try a VPN. Be sure the VPN is allowing you to do basic things like load a web page, then try running LOTRO and logging into your accustomed server.

Hi sorry, I hit my daily limit for how many times I could post on the forum

I have a couple bits to report:

1. Tried VPN - Didn't change the result still had to keep switching networks
2. Tried different server - Same thing still had to keep switching

Eventually I tried instead of actually switching networks to just turn the same network off and back on and I can actually get through to the game by switching the wifi off and on several times to push it through the loading screens

Very odd behaviour and really not sure what the answer is albeit I do seem to be able to play the game once I've gone through the roundabout way of logging in

Thanks for getting back with your results, Harrison. I'm kind of at a loss to explain why the expedient of switching networks multiple times or toggling your Mac's wifi on/off multiple times works around your problem. I don't know what the cause of the problem is, either, but it's certainly network-related.

Do you have your Mac's firewall turned on? Check in System Settings -> Network -> Firewall. If it's on, turn it off. (You might prefer to have it on most of the time, but if it's on please turn it off for these tests.) Then restart your Mac and try to log into the game. If your firewall is currently on and turning it off allows you to play LOTRO without having to jump through those weird hoops, we can probably add some exceptions to your firewall and open some ports that will stop this issue from recurring while still allowing you to have the firewall active.

The other thing to try is to connect your Mac to your router with ethernet. Do that, turn off your Mac's wifi, restart your Mac, then try to log into the game. If you do this while your Mac's firewall is off and using ethernet does not allow you to get into the game, the problem is possibly with your router's built-in firewall. If so, again we can probably configure it to allow LOTRO traffic to pass unimpeded and so resolve your problem.

Just had a look and firewall has always been off, also did the Ethernet connection and still same issue, all a bit odd

Sorry to be such a troublesome case 😅

It's not your fault!

If this issue continues with wifi off and your Mac connected via ethernet, it's probably something to do with your router. And to be more specific, it's a problem that SSG's servers is having with your router, it's not some problem your router has that needs fixing. That said, there's nothing we can do about SSG's servers but there are things we can do with your router to be more compatible with SSG's traffic.

I can't give you explicit instructions for configuring your router. It depends on which one you have. Generally speaking, you need a direct ethernet connection to your router and then you use your web browser to connect to 192.168.1.1 as the address. You will need to provide a login name and password; most routers have the defaults on a label on the back or underneath but sometimes the name/password comes in a booklet and of course they will be different if you or someone else changed them at some point.

Once you are logged in to the router's configuration system, you need to setup exceptions for the following ports for LOTRO: 9000 through 9100, and 2900 through 2910 as TCP/UDP port connections. Apply the changes, save the changes, your router will probably need to restart to apply the changes but if not you should restart it yourself then check the router config to be sure the changes "stuck" through the restart. When the router is restarted it's a good idea to restart your Mac, too.

Then try to log in to LOTRO, use the ethernet connection since it's hooked up for the router config anyway. If that works, disconnect the ethernet cable and turn on your Mac's wifi then try to log in to LOTRO again.

Sorry about this not that tech savvy

I've logged into my Router and I've got a few options to do with ports which are:

IP & Port Filtering
Port Forwarding
Port Triggering

I'm on Virgin Media and Hub 5 if that helps at all

I don't know that router but I found this page:
https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/set-up-broadband

How to access advanced settings on Hub 3, Hub 4 or Hub 5 and Super Hub 1, 2 or 2ac

1. Enter 192.168.0.1 into the address bar of your browser, the settings page will then load.

If you’ve enabled Modem Mode on the Hub you’ll need to use 192.168.100.1 instead.

2. When prompted, enter the settings password shown on the bottom of the Hub/Super Hub.

Once you’ve accessed the page, there are a variety of settings you can change:

Once you do that, go to PORT FORWARDING and set up the ports I described in my last message.

Just set up the port forwarding but the issue remains, I did however manage to play for a few hours last night without issue and this only seems to be an issue with establishing the connection, once I'm in and travelling between different stable masters etc it loads and goes through the splash screens perfectly normally

I'm just going to accept that if I want to play I need to jump through a couple of quirky hoops I think

Is there any way I can buy you a coffee to say thanks for your help?

Sigh...

I'm sorry we couldn't resolve your problem. It's good that you have a workaround, however weird it might be. The inability to maintain a stable connection seems related only to the authentication or login server, not the world servers, and that adds to the clues pointing to some issue with your local network rather than anything related to the game itself. (And again, there's nothing wrong with your network, it is just not allowing needed traffic from some of SSG's servers.)

If you have a laptop, I wonder if you might be able to visit a friend or a MacDonald's or Starbucks and "borrow" their wifi to test if the problem continues. It shouldn't, but if it does then we would know if we might have to think about network settings on your Mac rather than on your home network devices. If so, this would be extremely rare.

Come to the Technical Support area of LOTRO's official forums and start your own thread there if you need more assistance:
https://forums.lotro.com/index.php?forums/technical-support.89/

I'm happy to help! I appreciate the thanks, but plain text is the only reward I seek. Have fun in Middle-earth, and don't wear out your mouse button on that wifi toggle!

Ah thanks John, if you're sure

I tend to travel quite a lot so when I am away next I will see if the different wifi network makes it work any better and report back